Discussion: How Trump's Obamacare Sabotage Sets Him Up For His Own Political Misery

[khyber900]

I don’t think the troops we have in SK are near enough to launch a war against NK, which you also suggest. I don’t think we would have SK’s help. SK will focus on defensive measures to protect their people and to continue diplomacy with Kim. I don’t think Kim wants war. Take the US out of the equation and it seems to me that the rest of the world would do a deal with him and look for more economic, diplomatic and cultural openings to moderate the regime from within. Kim might be ok with that. His biggest concern is the US obsession with regime change. With the US looking weak and isolated, other countries like China would have a pretty good chance of rallying the int’l community against war.

But Trump and the hardliners are not without cards either. They would fall back on Bush’s axis of evil to argue that Kim’s regime is an abomination to humanity and must be replaced. He’d have the support of the GOP and GOP leaning Indies for such an argument.

[sparrowhawk]

Political misery is not nearly enough misery for trump. He needs political, personal, financial and health misery writ large. Like penniless living under a bridge in the rain misery. Incurable and very exceedingly painful and advanced bone cancer not ameliorated by any pain medication type misery (let alone no health insurance misery after being made penniless by a court judgement type misery). Wife leaving him misery. No ego soothing praise misery.

Hey, the evangelicals could find out what a good Christian Trump is if God sent Satan down to give Trump the Job treatment. I’m sure the outcome would be the same and wouldn’t show them all to be a bunch of hypocrites.

[alkermes]

it’s been corrected, although it looks like there was an interim error.

I feel for the good citizens of Maine, at least LePage is term limited.

[ottnott]

I suspect there may be a problem with that analysis - if Trump’s sabotage of the ACA backfires by accidentally improving it, then it seems likely that Trump would try to take credit for the improvement.

I know you are snarking, but, I’ll play the straight man for the moment and say that [Trumpp doesn’t understand the effects of what he is proposing][1].

Nobody who has credibility with Trumpp has told him that the move will do anything but raise premiums and hurt the insurance companies (who didn’t jump on board the GOP repeal train). Higher premiums, he believes, threatens to kill ACA and will force Dems to negotiate with him from a position of not just weakness, but desperation (which is when Trumpp likes to make deals).

Now, if the improvements should become reality, your snarky scenario would then take effect.
[1]: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/10/trump-keeps-getting-mad-when-he-learns-what-his-policies-do.html

[ottnott]

The R’s bashed the D’s with “Repeal and replace” for years. Now I say they bash back with “You break it, you own it!”. Dems need to match the Rep’s catchy tropes because that’s what sinks into the uneducated public. (Or even, “You BROKE it; you own it!”)

Pottery Barn* rule

*Thomas Friedman shoved Pottery Barn into the rule, even though they don’t have a “you break it, you own it” policy.

[thinski]

[lizzymom]

I fear this will be all too true in too many cases.

[daveyjones64]

I don’t think the troops we have in SK are near enough to launch a war against NK, which you also suggest.

No. I am suggesting that we have far more assets, including troops, already deployed there than we did in Saudi Arabia/Kuwait when we started the build up for the 2003 invasion. Additional troops/assets may very well be deployed (and might already be being deployed), but it won’t be the massive news that the build up before Iraq provoked…where we had to deploy everything from scratch

[khyber900]

We have 40k in SK and 35k in Japan as well as more assets in Guam. That is a lot more than we had in the Gulf (though we had large bases in the Middle East), but still seems short of what would be needed to take on an invasion of NK. Iraq '02 and NK today are about the same size in pop (I was surprised to see that Iraq’s population has boomed since '03…they’re up to 38 mill from 25 mill in '03). it just seems like a big task to take on that would require a significant escalation in assets.

[leftflank]

What Trounce does at all times is out of a form of misery. Self loathing and the constant inner knowledge that he isn’t worthy and/or accepted.

I believe that he lives a tortured life, is mean enough to get through it but that that fact gnaws at his insides and the only thing that soothes him, is passing his pain on in hopes of ridding himself of it.
Even by becoming POTUS, he has gained no relief. Think about that!

[daveyjones64]

NK has a bigger military than Iraq did (even counting the Iraqi’s the bled off immediately into the country side), and significantly worse terrain. So yes, considerably more troops would be required. Also, any real military plan would suppose that it would be a long engagement (not the weeks of being greeted with flowers that W’s people assumed), and would have to be prepared for China…or possibly even Russia…would eventually support the regime.

[map2]

Squeeze them until it hurts, then squeeze some more. He’ll never change, and he’ll never understand why that doesn’t work in government.

I think it actually does work for him. Government working or not is irrelevant. He declares victory regardless or finds some shiftless brown people to blame it on. Facts don’t matter at all, Fox will praise him and his devotees will buy in wholeheartedly, even when they themselves are hurt as long as those brown people are hurt more.

The ultimate concern for Trump is that he gets to hurt people and be praised for it. Everything he says and does makes sense when seen through that lens.